Plenty of artists and would-be naturalists are content to observe extraterrestrial beings from a discreet distance — perhaps a few miles away, via hyperzoom. But only artist Alex Ries, aka Abiogenesis, is willing to approach these creatures and paint them.

We featured an image by Ries the other day in our post about creating an alien life form, and we were blown away by his vivid imagery of an alien creature meeting a human for the first time. Here are a few more of our favorites from among his work. According to this blog post from 2009, he's trying to publish a book of his artworks of one of his made-up alien species, the Birrin — here's hoping it actually happens!